Making Sense of Scents

Archive for the ‘Incense’ Category

One way of catching the pest Cydia molesta, the peach tree moth, is to use its pheromone chemical Acenol to attract the male to traps. Dienol traps the codling moth, whilst plum fruit moths can be attracted by Fenemol.

These moths have vast arrays of antennae, very similar to the banks of listening radars we have for alien messages.

The pheromone Bombykol which works for the bombyx mori moth, can be smelled by this insect at a distance of two miles.

A radar system like no other!

Scaling that up for humans, that is like your being able to smell your beloved in Boston whilst you are in New York!

The sense of smell is of the highest importance to the greater number of mammals ‑ to … the ruminants, in warning them of danger; to the carnivora, in finding that prey … but the sense of smell is of extremely slight service, if any, to men …he inherits the power in an enfeebled and so far rudimentary condition, from some early progenitor, to whom it was highly serviceable, and by whom it was continually used.

The ancients believed that the only thing which could cross the physical barrier between Heaven and Earth was the smoke of incense. Indeed perfume takes its name from the Latin “per fumare” which means “through” or “by” smoke. If you prayed to your God, whatever his or her name, and you wanted your prayers to be answered favourably, it made sense to “sweeten” your request with the magical smokes of burning aromatics.
Here’s my take on that: (Oh! and by the way Onycha is crushed operculum (door) from a certain Mediterranean snail which helped “fix” the mix. Still used in the Middle East.)